On Friday 1st December, we were thrilled to welcome Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut and UK Outreach Ambassador from Imperial College London, to officially open the new Science Centre at Packwood. With the generosity and dedication of the Packwood 125 Appeal alongside investment from Shrewsbury School, the three laboratories are now state of the art and will help support the Science teaching at Packwood for many years to come.
The learning environment has already had a hugely positive impact on the way in which Science is taught and the way in which pupils are able to engage. An inspirational teaching and learning environment is essential for pupils to make the best possible progress and the facilities are now second to none.
In addition to the opening ceremony in the evening, the day involved a Science theme across all subjects, where all pupils in the school, from Acorns through to Year 8, were involved in activities centred around Science. This provided some wonderful cross-curricular opportunities with activities including learning in History about how Dutch cloth merchants invented the telescope, in TPR pupils recreated different constellations using marshmallows and cocktail sticks, whilst in Music and Drama they recreated a musical launch and created accompanying still life images.
All pupils had a chance to work in the Science labs on the day, with Year 8 investigating how to make the best sails for a boat and testing them using light gates to see which was the fastest. The junior forms made their own periscopes whilst Year 7 were in the Biology lab performing a number of different experiments involving microscopes.
In the afternoon, all guests were welcomed into the labs where some of the Year 8 and Year 4 pupils demonstrated different investigations. These included year 8 pupils showing how to make a pH wand, an experiment involving burning magnesium and investigating what happens to its mass, and an investigation into what happens when you put dry ice into warm water as a method to show sublimation.
